The other edible parts of plants.

Did you know that the leaves of most cabbage family plants are also edible? Make those broccoli plants do double duty and use the buds and the leaves.

The leaves of beans and peas are also edible.

I would imagine that you would want to use the tender new growth at the tips instead of older leaves.

For more about the other edible parts of plants, here's a more complete list.

**

Compost Gold

Organic matter, such as yard and food wastes make up 23% of the waste generated in the United States. Composting is an effective, inexpensive, and natural way to handle this organic waste. Organic materials decompose in nature to feed soil and make it healthy. You can imitate nature in your own yard by composting your yard waste and kitchen waste.

Compost is a natural way of returning necessary nutrients to the soil. It's easy to start your own compost pile at home. Compost is an extremely versatile product. It has the ability to improve soil properties physically, chemically, and biologically.

Gardener's experiences with compost have shown healthier, faster, and heartier vegetation and plant growth. It works even when growing conditions are less than ideal.

Compost is produced through the activity of tiny organisms and fungi known as decomposers. When the pile is cool enough, worms, insects, and their relatives will help out the microbes. Given a favorable environment, they will break down your yard wastes and kitchen scraps into a humus-like material that can serve as an excellent soil amendment for your yard and garden.

Materials in the compost pile should always remain as damp as a squeezed sponge. A depression created at the top center of the pile will collect precipitation. Materials such as grass clippings tend to layer themselves, so create thin layers with other materials, such as leaves. Leaves and kitchen scraps are a good source of carbon, and grass clippings are the best source of nitrogen.

If you experience slow composting, adding more nitrogen can speed things up. Mix three parts leaves to one part grass, other green materials, or kitchen waste for best results. Remember you compost will only be as good as the materials you add. Make sure that you provide for a wide range of materials to have the best compost.

Compost is finished when it's a dark, rich color, crumbles easily, and you can't pick out any of the original ingredients. It should have a sweet, earthy smell.

Tomato Varieties for 2009

I have settled on next seasons tomato varieties to try.

Tangerine Tomato - Seems the lycopene in this variety is better absorbed. Click the link to read the Science Daily article.

Tommy Toe - This is a cherry tomato. I'll be replacing the Chadwick Cherries with this variety this year. I just renewed my Chadwick Cherry seed supply last season so I can skip a season or two and still have viable seed.

San Marzano - This will be the sauce variety next season. I had some Romas and Amish Paste last season. I really didn't like the growth habits of the Amish Paste tomatoes, too weedy. It was a bad year for tomatoes here. Too much heat early then too cool. The flavor never developed.

Early Girls and Fouth of July will again be the early varieties.

And by April I'll usually find a few more tomato varieties to try. Then there's the extra plants donated by fellow gardeners.

Here's the link to Cornell's Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners resource too. You'll find rating on many garden vegetable and sources for seeds on the site. Very useful!

These Gardeners Don't Need A Government Bailout.

As you watch this urban farming video notice that no government bailout was necessary. Just a whole bunch of caring people working together to do something good.
This is a demonstration of community building as it should be.

Dry Farming

The weather doesn't always co-operate by raining when our gardens need water.

I have a few old books on dry-farming saved in my Google Library. These books were written over 100 years ago. They contain ideas you can use today to grow vegetables if you live in a dry climate or are growing under drought conditions.

Here's an excerpt from "Dry Farming" by John A. Widtsoe...

DRY-FARMING, as at present understood, is the
profitable production of useful crops, without irrigation,
on lands that receive annually a rainfall of
20 inches or less.

In districts of torrential rains,
high winds, unfavorable distribution of the rainfall,
or other water-dissipating factors, the term "
dry-farming " is also properly applied to farming
without irrigation under an annual precipitation of
25 or even 30 inches.

There is no sharp demarkation between dry- and humid-farming.
When the annual precipitation is under 20
inches, the methods of dry-farming are usually
indispensable. When it is over 30 inches, the
methods of humid-farming are employed; in places
where the annual precipitation is between 20 and .
30 inches, the methods to be used depend chiefly
on local conditions affecting the conservation of
soil moisture.

Here's a link to the Dry Farming Books in my Google Library. These are the complete books readable online or downloadable as a PDF.

Resource for Vegetable Gardeners

Do you want to find new (and old) vegetable varieties to try? Looking for something different?

Cornell University has a great resource for home gardeners. The site is called Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners.

You can use it to find out about just about any vegetable. There are also links to the places to buy the seeds and plants.

Any serious gardener will bookmark this site.

City Gardens in the Philipines

Urban Permaculture